Of the catheters manufactured today, there appear to be none which are designed and constructed in such a manner as to make them ideal for use in cholangiography. A cholangiographic catheter would have to be placed through the cystic duct of a patient and then enter into the common bile duct. Due to the sensitive nature of this region, i.e. the possibility of puncturing, commercially available catheters are not suitable. Several examples of catheters are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,836,441; 4,883,474; 4,886,506; 4,887,996; 4,913,683; 4,279,252; 4,747,840; 3,938,501; 4,801,297; 4,117,836; and 4,563,181. All of these patents would be unusable in cholangiography due to: the difficulty of inserting the catheter through the cystic duct, the potential for tearing the common bile duct, and the inability to direct the flow of inserted material away from the catheter tip.
Only one U.S. Patent was found which disclosed the ability to control the spray of inserted material. U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,767 (Spiroff) discloses an angiographic catheter which is used in the heart. The Spiroff device is specifically designed with varying size holes to discharge a uniform cloud of fluid around the tip of the catheter. While this uniform cloud serves a useful purpose for angiographic use, it is not effective for use in cholangiography The catheter disclosed in the Spiroff patent would have difficulty passing through the cystic duct well of a patient due to the lack of an effective taper in the tip.
Although all of the above devices relate to catheters the have the various disadvantages mentioned above.